Their pace quickened, speeding through the sewers at double time. Maphira couldn’t work out why they’d suddenly sped up, but she went along with it, resisting the urge to say something annoying and witty.
The tunnel was well lit, with small lights placed on the stone ceiling every ten metres or so. They turned down several corners, then crossed a small bridge over the river of muck and grime. Along the way, Maphira noticed many blocked drains. Melbourne had a serious blocked drain problem, but it seemed that the Conclave wanted it exactly that way.
“Are we there yet?” Maphira asked in her most childish voice.
“No, not yet,” replied Vai.
She waited only a minute before trying again. “Are we there yet?”
“No. We’ll get there when we get there.”
“Are we there yet?”
Vai groaned and turned to Maphira. “Will you please be quiet? You’re starting to give me a headache. You don’t understand how important this is to me. If this isn’t a successful test, I’ll be toast. The Great Mechanist will feed me to his robot dogs. My life is on the line here.”
“Gee, I can’t imagine what that must be like.” Maphira glared at the woman she’d once considered a close friend. “Here you are dragging me through these disgusting sewers to be a test subject for something I assume is probably going to take my life, and you’re asking for sympathy. A bit rich. And honestly, get someone down here to conduct some drain camera inspections. Near Melbourne, there are plenty of plumbers who could do it, and they’d probably be discreet. This place is totally gross.”
Shaking her head, Vai said, “What you don’t understand, Mai, is that sometimes you have to go through hard things for the greater reward. Is it gross down here? Yeah. Does that matter? No. Similarly, I didn’t want to betray you all those years ago, but I did to create something better than our friendship. If only you could open your eyes and see the good of Robotopia, then maybe you wouldn’t have worked against us.”